Though it was technically under his watch, Layden was hired by Dave Checketts before Dolan was taking a hands on approach. Checketts had been the executive in charge of the team during its entire decade of success and there wasn’t any reason for Dolan to suggest a better candidate for the job. Sure, the move reeked of Utah nepotism, but if the neophyte Dolan had chosen his own GM it would have been an even worse ownership infraction than what actually happened.

As much as Dolan should be the punching bag for the misery our team has endured in the 21st Century, and the resume of destruction perpetrated by him is lengthy, by shutting up and leaving Donnie Walsh to actually run the team there’s not much more damage that he can do. Just sign off on the budget and go away. That should be Dolan’s role, and he seems to be embracing it.

I can’t agree with you about only looking at what a guy has done lately and ignoring their entire history. James Dolan has run the Knicks 11 seasons. They’ve had two winning seasons in that stretch, the first two when the team was inherited from previous management. The previous 11 seasons the Knicks had 11 winning seasons. Layden came in the same year as Dolan, so it’s not just Isiah. And it’s not just that he made a poor decision hiring Isiah, it’s that he was Isiah’s boss and allowed Isiah to turn the Knicks into the worst run franchise in sports. Into a total side-show circus-freak act. Given the turmoil leading up to the Isiah firing and Walshtoni hiring, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if daddy (Charles Dolan… who founded HBO AND Cablevision…) stepped in and called the shots. James’ stepping out of the limelight since those incidents may also not be entirely his decision. Whenever daddy decides James shouldn’t be playing with his toys anymore I believe he can fire his ass. If he had continued to go down the Paris Hilton path of disgracing the family publically while also running assets into the ground, I would imagine Charles would have done something at some point (and probably did do something minor like tell him to get his shit together or run the show for a period). I don’t know who legally has ownership, but to some degree I assume James is beholden to daddy.

Just because something happens behind the scenes doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. An owner is the ultimate decision maker and sets the tone for the entire organization. James Dolan has forced his employees to attend his stupid concerts, had a high-profile sexual harrassment suit filed against his company, and managed to alienate the group I’d consider the best fans in the NBA. And he’s a pathetic spoiled asshole to top it off. Ideally the owner is mostly behind the scenes and has the right people in place, but the buck ultimately stops with the owner.

You argument is that there are 3 worse owners in all of US pro sports… If he’s the 4th worst among dozens of owners… not doing too well.

Al Davis is a former coach whose team has been in the playoffs about 50% of the years he’s owned it. He’s been miserable lately, but the guy has owned the Raiders since 1972. Recently he’s definitely worse than Dolan, but history indicates that if Davis is not senile at this point he can turn it around.

The Suns haven’t had a losing season since Sarver bought the team from Jerry Colangelo. I don’t know if Sarver gets any credit for that, but anything he’s done wrong hasn’t killed the team. The Spurs also routinely sell first rounders, the Lakers sold theirs to the Knicks in 09, and Colangelo himself sold the #6 pick in the draft to clear enough room to sign Q Richardson. It’s a small market move and a cap strategy. I disagree with it in most cases, but it’s not that he’s the only one doing it.

Sterling is just a terrible owner. Atanta’s ownership had some real problems, but they seem to have resolved them (at least the franchise has been turned around in some way and you no longer hear about the problems). GS also seems to be a mess, and Taylor in Minnesota can be accused of being too hands off after letting McHale screw around for, what, 15 years then having a power struggle in the front office where, like GS now, no one knew who was calling the shots. Browns and Lions have been so pathetic for so long that you have to assume it starts at the top. Baseball owners seem to be more hands off, my guess is since running a farm system is pretty complex and probably in a lot of ways boring. (Hard to get too excited about a draft pick who may be in the bigs in 5 years or may never make it past AA…) Beyond their farm system and deciding when to trade players they soon won’t be able to afford, small market teams have little recourse under MLB’s CBA. There’s more for big market teams to screw up (i.e. bad contracts… and even then one poor signing can totally cripple a small market team while a big market team can sweep it under the rug…), but they also have the deck stacked in their favor.

One thing about Prokhorov – maybe I’m naive but I can’t imagine his buying the team really globalizes anything for the Nets. I was listening to Mike and Mike yesterday and they were talking about kids in Russia and Europe now becoming Net fans because of him, much the way that a lot of Japanese people are now Yankee or Mariner fans because of Matsui and Ichiro. The difference is that Matsui and Ichiro are PLAYERS. Who watches a team because of the OWNER? The owner is faceless as far as the product is concerned. The Glazers own Manchester United, one of the great franchises in the world, and still no one in the US gives a damn about soccer. I guess he can get them on TV in Russia but I sort of assume the NBA’s already on TV over there.

As far as I’m concerned, the job of the owner in professional sports is to hire a competent GM and president to help run the team, acquire players, and hire coaches. Beyond that, his job is to allow this competent front office to spend money in order to put the best product on the floor. Dolan failed badly when he hired Isiah but he corrected that mistake (many years too late) 2 years ago, which is an eternity in sports. Now he has Walsh, who is beyond reproach as a basketball guy, and D’Antoni, who was probably the best coach available at the time. So what’s the problem?

Probably not Donald Sterling. Dolan is incompetent, but he’s willing to spend money. The Knicks had the highest payroll in the NBA for years. An incompetent, cheap owner might be worse (though necessity can be the mother of invention and maybe a cheap owner would force his GMs to be creative?).

Dolan is one of the worst, though. Maybe neck-and-neck with Sterling for worst owner in professional sports. I mean, who are the other candidates? Al Davis recently, but the Raiders have had plenty of winning seasons on his watch. Maybe some low-profile guys in baseball, but they have an excuse since MLB’s structure favors big market teams.

We’d have to spell it “LEB?ON”? Anyone else buying the Knicks would be an improvement, no?

“He drafted Jameer Nelson (not sure the motive behind the draft day trade of him though), and drafted Jerret Jack (traded for Linus Kleiza).”

There’s a 90% chance he didn’t choose to draft those players, but agreed on a trade before hand. Orlando wanted Nelson, so they found a trading partner. With Jack he must have been at least willing to keep him, since he couldn’t guarantee Kleiza would be available 5 picks later. Anyway, you usually credit GMs with what they come out of the draft with. Not the players they draft only to immediately trade, but what they get in those trades. Kiki pcked Julius Hodge with the pick he traded Nelson for… Nelson for Hodge was a terrible move in hindsight. Jack for Kleiza and Ricky Sanchez is close enough to a wash, though it seems Jack will have the better NBA career in the end since Kleiza is in Europe.

BBA,

Dolan is an a-hole, but he’s not exactly poor. Prokhorov has brought a lot of excitement, but we don’t know what he’s actually going to do for the Nets. Bruce Ratner also brought a lot of excitement when he bought the Nets to move them to Brooklyn, he didn’t do much for them. Maybe Prokhorov will be the best owner in the NBA, but maybe he’ll be the worst.

Can you imagine if this guy wouldve been able to buy the Knicks?????